Morning's black fingers slither
Through wasted limbs
Of trees in Newland Park
And drip through high windows
Like vomit onto the
Half-framed sonnet
On my desk
In the dark,
Then slip through the door
Like a jilted lover.
'So what?', the toad on my shoulder croaks.
Sod it. If I finish this one
I'll only have to write another.
A Larkin fragment found wedged in a sash window during recent renovations at Holtby House, Cottingham:
Love poem
The clammy winter fug inside my head obscures
The conjured memory of what you said.
I know no not but neither may be so
The beast's dark shadow hovers low.
In heavy sulphur skies, it coils to spring
And choke and smother everything.
We cannot see what lies before us
I search for words in my thesaurus
What sort of life is life anyway
But work to do and bills to pay?
I suddenly remember what you said.
Frankly, dear, I wish you dead.
Found between the pages of a copy of 'Basic Accounting' in the Brynmor Jones Library, Hull